Paramount criticises celebrity-endorsed Israeli film boycott

Paramount, under its new owner David Ellison, has become the first major Hollywood studio to condemn a boycott of Israeli film institutions that more than 4,000 actors and directors now support.

In a statement on Sept 12, the studio said it believed in “the power of storytelling to connect and inspire people, promote mutual understanding and preserve the moments, ideas and events that shape the world we share”, adding that it disagreed “with recent efforts to boycott Israeli film-makers”.

The boycott, brought this past week by Film Workers for Palestine, a group that campaigns for the end of the humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip, was initially signed by more than 1,000 film-makers and industry professionals.

Entertainment industry celebrities Olivia Colman, Ava DuVernay, Mark Ruffalo, Ayo Edebiri and others pledged not to work with Israeli film institutions that they believe are complicit in the crisis. Support for the movement has since quadrupled.

“Silencing individual creative artists based on their nationality does not promote better understanding or advance the cause of peace,” Paramount said in its statement. “We need more engagement and communication – not less.”

Film Workers for Palestine pushed back against Paramount in a statement on Sept 12, saying it hoped the studio was not “intentionally misrepresenting the pledge in an attempt to silence our colleagues in the film industry”.

The group has argued that its boycott targets film institutions and companies, not individual artists.

A vast majority of Israel’s “film production and distribution companies, sales agents, cinemas and other film institutions”, the group has said, “have never endorsed the full, internationally recognised rights of the Palestinian people”.

In its statement on Sept 12, Film Workers for Palestine also pointed to the close relationship between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and Mr Larry Ellison, a tech titan and Mr David Ellison’s father.

Recent documents filed with the Federal Communications Commission show that Mr Larry Ellison will control Paramount.

Paramount’s response to the boycott comes amid what some have perceived as a shift to the right at the company, and a little more than a month after a US$8 billion (S$10.2 billion) merger with media company Skydance, which Mr David Ellison controls.

That deal was approved by the Trump administration after Paramount agreed to pay US President Donald Trump US$16 million to settle a lawsuit over the editing of an interview on “60 Minutes” with then Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Many lawyers had dismissed Mr Trump’s lawsuit as baseless and viewed the settlement as an extraordinary concession to a sitting president.

This past week, CBS News installed Mr Kenneth R. Weinstein, a conservative policy veteran, as its ombudsman, to review complaints about the network’s coverage.

It has been nearly two years since Hamas attacked Israel on Oct 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people. More than 60,000 people have been killed in the war, according to Gaza health officials, whose tally does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.

In August, a group of academic experts known as the International Association of Genocide Scholars declared that

Israel’s actions in Gaza had met the legal definition of genocide.

A spokesperson for the Israeli Foreign Ministry rejected that conclusion, saying it was based on “Hamas’ campaign of lies”.

The boycott of Israel’s film institutions arrives at a time of growing international frustration among artists over the country’s conduct of its war in Gaza. Several countries, for instance, have promised to boycott the 2026 Eurovision Song Contest if Israel participates. NYTIMES